An Irresistible Bachelor(112)
"Callie, are you sure you want to do this? It's not going to be easy."
"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. I just wish I wasn't such a liability."
Jack stared into her eyes with disbelief. "You are not a liability to me. And besides, the voters have to choose me because they believe in my vision for the state. God knows, I have enough scandals of my own.
"If my platform, my convictions, aren't enough to override my own past, it's not going to matter what your father did or who he was."
There was a pause and she smiled softly at him. "So you're going to run? Because I think you would make a fantastic governor."
Jack couldn't believe the way she was looking at him. She was so steady, so certain, even though he had the sense she knew what she was in for.
"Okay. I'll run."
Out in the hall, Gray Bennett looked over as the DA for Suffolk County tapped him on the shoulder.
"Listen, Bennett, I'm due at my kid's soccer game this afternoon and we're wasting time out in this hall. How much longer do you think he's going to be in there?"
Gray opened the door to the conference room a crack. He took one look at Jack and Callie kissing and shut it with a smile.
"I think it might be a while. Why don't I give you a call?"
The man smiled slowly and then nodded with a knowing grin. "Sounds good. Hell, if that redhead wanted to see me, I'd give her the time, too."
Epilogue
"MonDieu Callie, look at the time." Gerard Beauvais's voice broke through the silence of the conservation lab. "You will be late!"
Callie glanced at her watch and leapt from her chair. "Oh, not again. I totally lost track of—”
She began frantically screwing on lids and putting brushes away.
"No, I will do that," Gerard said, shooing her away. "You must go."
She grabbed her coat and her backpack. On the way to the door, she was talking to Gerard over her shoulder. "About the Tintoretto. We need to—”
"We will talk of it tomorrow! Go!"
She ran for the stairs and burst out through the back entrance of the MFA. Breaking into a jog, she fumbled for her keys as she went over to a silver Volvo station wagon.
When she was speeding down Huntington Avenue, she flipped on the radio.
"With the polls just closing now, we'll have the results of this year's elections in a matter of minutes. The hotly contested governor's race, between Jack Walker and incumbent Butch Callahan—”
She turned the thing off, unable to bear the tension. Heading into town, and running a couple of yellow lights along the way, she tried to pay proper attention to the road. She didn't want to smash up the first and only car she'd ever bought for herself on a night like this.
Eight minutes later, she pulled up in front of an office building just on the edge of Chinatown. She went once around the block looking for a space and then parked the Volvo up on the curb next to a dumpster in the back, hoping she didn't get towed.
Rushing into the building, she heard the noise of an excited crowd out in the lobby and went right for a sign that read Jack Walker for Governor. She wrenched open the door under it and hit a wall of people.
The room was good-sized and filled to capacity. Down at the far end, she could just make out the stage that had been erected. On it were a huge TV set tuned to the local news and a lectern with a microphone. To one side of the platform, there was a bank of desks with people moving around furiously. She saw Gray with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, one ear plugged with a finger while he tried to talk on a cell phone. To his left was Cookie Sanchez, the campaign manager.
At the edge of the action, she saw Nate, Thomas, and Mrs. Walker. They were standing apart from the crowd, Thomas looking a little overwhelmed and Mrs. Walker working her gloves with nervous hands.
Nate was smiling, as if he had no doubt as to what the results were going to be.
And then she saw Jack. Her breath caught, as it still did whenever she walked into a room and put her eyes on him. Pride in everything he had done over the past year, in the way he'd presented himself, in what he believed in, in how he had stood by her side when the story about her father had come out, had her chest swelling. It had been a grueling year for him, full of traveling across Massachusetts, meeting thousands of people, refining and redefining his vision for the state. And through it all, she had his full love and support. Even five minutes before the final debate last week, he'd been holding her hand and looking into her eyes as if there was nothing else going on in his life at all.